1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electro-optical device used in, for example, a mobile phone. In particular, the invention relates to an electro-optical device having optical panels disposed at top and bottom surfaces thereof and to an electronic apparatus including the electro-optical device.
2. Related Art
In recent years, in an electronic apparatus such as a mobile phone, a portable computer, or a video camera, an electro-optical device such as a liquid crystal display device is widely used as a display unit. An electro-optical device is disclosed in JP-A-2004-87409 and JP-A-2003-207801 in which two liquid crystal devices are disposed in a handheld information terminal, in particular, such as a mobile phone or a PDA (personal digital assistant), such that back sides of the two liquid crystal devices face each other.
In the electro-optical device, a first liquid crystal panel and a second liquid crystal panel are disposed with a predetermined gap interposed therebetween, and a light guiding member and a transflector are provided between the first and second liquid crystal panels in the order beginning from the first liquid crystal panel side. In addition, some of the light components which have been guided through the light guiding member are reflected by the transflector to propagate toward the first liquid crystal panel and the other light components are transmitted through the transflector to propagate toward the second liquid crystal panel. As such, image light is emitted from a display surface side of each of the liquid crystal panels.
However, in the case in which the first and second liquid crystal panels are disposed opposite to each other with the transflector interposed therebetween in the same manner as in the liquid crystal display devices disclosed in JP-A-2004-87409 and JP-A-2003-207801, the liquid crystal display of one of the liquid crystal panels affects the liquid crystal display by shadowing the other liquid crystal panel, which causes the display to be deteriorated. In order to solve the problem, a double-side display apparatus is disclosed in JP-A-2004-78047 in which the second liquid crystal panel is set to a black display mode (LED is in a normally black mode) so as to shield transmissive light from a bottom surface thereof.
Here, in the liquid crystal display devices disclosed in JP-A-2004-87409 and JP-A-2003-207801, only a technique is disclosed in which the light components, which have been guided through the light guiding member, are divided so as to propagate toward each of the panels by using the transflector. Further, the double-side display apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2004-78047 has been proposed only to consistently prevent a region where the second liquid crystal panel is disposed from becoming bright when viewed from the first liquid crystal panel side, by shielding external light incident from the second liquid crystal panel side. Therefore, in the techniques disclosed in JP-A-2004-87409, JP-A-2003-207801, and JP-A-2004-78047, according to circumstances, a problem occurs in that an area of the second liquid crystal panel becomes dark when viewed from the first liquid crystal panel side.